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Calling it now: half a coconut a tool-using octopus swam in from one island to another.
I am always amused and puzzled when American spooks begin this stuff. It's one of the great mysteries of life why they do it at all and yet always end it as a nothingburger. I used to have a conspiratorial theory about psyop overcapacity, but at this point I'm allowing that it's some running gag, a nostalgic tradition born of ancient superstition nobody seriously believes in. Maybe we should create a holiday.
I think there's probably a huge amount of UFO folklore going around in aerospace and intelligence communities.
One of the things about UFO debates that has surprised me is to many Americans seem to give absolute credence to intelligence officials, pilots etc. about this stuff; simply the fact that some pilot says that he saw a craft making impossible maneuvers and zooming at ludicrous speeds is sufficient evidence about alien activity, since this is an AMERICAN HERO PILOT, he couldn't possibly be making stuff up or misinterpreting what he saw, can he?
I would assume that aerospace and intelligence communities would be expectionally likely to be true believers about UFO matters and have a very light standard for accepting evidence on this field, simply because these fields would draw in the types that specifically want to become an astronaut and/or a spy to "learn the truth" about aliens, and even the others would be affected by the general culture and folklore created by these types, especially since intelligence types, in particular, already sort of live in a paranoid X-files world and are probably privy to the idea that the intelligence community possesses secret info that normies can't be allowed to know/wouldn't understand.
One of the pilots who has claimed to see UFOs is David "Sex" Fravor. (Who, incidentally, was already a bit famous from being in a documentary aboard an aircraft carrier in the 2000's.)
On the Joe Rogan podcast not too long ago, he admitted to pranking people into thinking they had seen UFOs. He said he would spot campers by their campfires, put his fighter jet's engines to idle and glide in quietly and invisibly until he was over top of them. Then he would pull up sharply, kick in the afterburners and climb vertically away from them. So, the campers would see lights appear in the sky out of nowhere and then shoot straight up and disappear. I don't recall if he was able to verify that it worked and people actually reported UFOs or not.
So, he had admitted to deliberately trying to trick people into thinking they had seen aliens, as a joke, but for some reason people still believe him when he tells other UFO stories.
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It certainly is funny and endearing.
I have a few more conspiratorial theories but at the core that makes them plausible lies the endlessly productive American combination of credulity and paranoia. There are conspiracies, but childish horror story ones – ayy lmaos in the basement, a pizza pedo ring in another, yeat fear not citizen – patriots are in control…
One of my theories is that this low-IQ myth saturation serves to prevent Americans from developing anything like nuanced national mythos or new political movements (say, founded on some more credible conspiracy theory); sap the crazy power from potential dissidents and discredit the idea of dissidence as a whole for smarter constituents.
I think conspiracies exist and they are not goofy at all.
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relevant.
RIP Trevor.
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